I’ve been shooting a bow for 50 years—started out with a recurve and traded up to a compound like most people do--so I’ve got the physical technique of drawing, aiming and shooting an arrow down pat. Now it’s all in my head. No doubt in my mind, if you hunt with a bow that is well-tuned you can will an arrow in and through a deer’s vitals if you train your brain to do it. The trouble is, most hunters are too busy worrying about their shooting form or fiddling with a fancy new rest, sight or other piece of gear. They forget about the mental part, and that is a mistake. You can have the best-tuned $1,200 bow, arrows [...]

From Kansas to Virginia and north to Canada, 95 percent of the adult does will come into estrous and be bred from roughly November 5-20, regardless of moon phase, or weather for that matter. Biologists will tell you it’s been that way for years in the Northern two-thirds of the country, and will continue to be that way forever. So take off anytime from Halloween though Thanksgiving, and you’ll hunt rutting deer. And anytime you hunt rutting deer you are going to have a good time, with the potential to shoot a good buck. But I do believe that some days and weeks are better than others to take your bowhunting vacation according to when the various phases of the [...]

You can go out and glass fields on summer evenings, and poke around for deer tracks and stuff like you always have (yawn, boring). Or, you can think out of the box to find a huge buck to hunt in a few months (okay, perk up now and read on). Take a Hike Say you hunt a 400-acre block of woods, or maybe even a huge public area. You probably only hunt 100 of those acres, or maybe even just 50 of 75. You figure other people roam the ridges and hollows beyond your stand, so you stay put. Plus, you’ve likely gotten comfy and a bit lazy. You bust a buck in your old, familiar spot every once in [...]